Another Reason the City Never Sleeps: More Bedbugs

By SEWELL CHAN

Published: September 19, 2006

CORRECTION APPENDED

New York City is experiencing a dramatic resurgence in bedbugs -- those pesky oval insects that hide in the crevices of furniture and feast on human blood at night -- and officials are confounded about how best to respond.

Moreover, city officials revealed yesterday that state regulators had failed to publish standards for sanitizing used mattresses and box springs before they can be resold -- even though such standards were supposed to be developed years ago. The proliferation of secondhand furniture is believed to be one factor in the rise in bedbug infestations.

Although bedbugs are not considered a major health threat because they do not transmit disease, they can cause itchy welts and often require expensive exterminations. In the last fiscal year, the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development received 4,638 complaints about bedbugs in rental housing -- nearly five times as many as in the previous year.

At a City Council hearing yesterday on the issue, entomologists and exterminators said that bedbugs have been proliferating at levels not seen in decades. The cause of the resurgence is not certain, but experts have speculated that increased international travel, a recent ban on powerful pesticides and the market in used furniture have been factors.

A bill by Councilwoman Gale A. Brewer of Manhattan would ban the sale of reconditioned mattresses -- old mattresses with a new fabric cover sewn onto them, often with the original upholstery and padding underneath -- and create a task force to study the issue and make recommendations within a year.

The International Sleep Products Association, the trade association for mattress manufacturers, said yesterday that it supported a ban on the sale of reconditioned mattresses. ''The filth from the used mattress that lies just beneath the new fabric cover of a reconditioned product can be astounding,'' said Ryan Trainer, a lawyer for the association.

Andrew Eiler, director of legislation for the city's Department of Consumer Affairs, however, expressed uncertainty about the bill. A twin-size mattress without a box spring can be bought for $40 from the Salvation Army, or about $50 less than a new mattress. ''While $50 may not appear as a significant difference to some, it may be an unbridgeable gap to consumers with limited incomes,'' he said.

Under a 1996 law, manufacturers of used bedding must certify that they have sanitized the bedding, using standards developed by the state's Department of State, in consultation with the Department of Health. The law was later expanded to cover sellers of used bedding -- there are currently 261 registered with the state -- as well.

The problem, Mr. Eiler said, is that the state has never published sanitization standards. ''Since there are no rules, the certifications are relatively meaningless,'' he said.

In a telephone interview after the hearing, Eamon Moynihan, a spokesman for the Department of State, confirmed that ''there were no standards promulgated.'' The reasons why were not entirely clear, he said, but it seems that when the staff looked at the 1996 law, they concluded that to enforce it would have made reconditioned mattresses so expensive as to effectively outlaw them.

Mr. Moynihan said the department had no plan to revisit the issue.

The city does not directly regulate the sale of used mattresses. It licenses 3,795 dealers in secondhand goods, not counting used-car dealers, Mr. Eiler said, but it has no way to know how many of those dealers sell used mattresses. There is just not enough information, he said, to know whether banning the sale of used mattresses in the city would prevent the spread of the pests.

Richard J. Pollack, an expert in parasitic insects at the Harvard School of Public Health who testified at the hearing, said he doubted that the proposed ban would be effective. ''As long as used mattresses have value, they will remain a commodity despite attempts to regulate their movements,'' he said.

The resurgence of bedbugs appears to be affecting the city as a whole. ''There is no clear pattern, or neighborhood that's particularly at risk, at least that I'm aware of,'' Daniel Kass, director of environmental surveillance and policy for the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said at the hearing.

Exterminators have been grappling with how to suppress the infestations. Several of them testified yesterday, and Cindy Mannes, of the National Pest Management Association, said in a telephone interview that it recorded a 71 percent increase from 2000 to 2005 in the number of exterminators who had received calls about bedbugs.

Councilman Leroy G. Comrie Jr. of Queens, who presided over the hearing, said that residents often blame themselves for infestations. The insects easily crawl between homes through walls, floors and ceilings.

Louis N. Sorkin, an entomologist at the American Museum of Natural History, said there was an urgent need to raise public awareness. ''In some cases, people are using old remedies that may be dangerous to one's health, such as spraying a mattress with gasoline or kerosene to kill bedbugs,'' he said.

Dr. Pollack said, ''We shouldn't be too hysterical when dealing with bedbugs.'' At one point, he showed a slide of a 1793 pamphlet on how to control bedbugs. 'We keep trying to throw things at them, but they are outwitting us,'' he said.

Photo: Richard J. Pollack of the Harvard School of Public Health at a City Council hearing yesterday. The bedbug? Second row, second from left. (Photo by Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times)

Chart: ''More Bedbugs''
Bedbugs have become increasingly prevalent in New York City's rental apartments, according to the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

Graphs track the following from 2002-2006:

VIOLATIONS ISSUED
2002: 2
2006: 1,195

COMPLAINTS MADE
2002: 0
2006: 4,638

(Exact numerical figures for 2003-2005 are not shown)

Note: Data for fiscal years.

Correction: October 18, 2006, Wednesday
An article and chart on Sept. 19 about a resurgence of bedbugs in New York City used erroneous figures from the city to calculate the increase in the number of complaints about bedbugs in rental housing from the 2005 fiscal year to the 2006 fiscal year. In the 2006 fiscal year, as the article and chart noted, the city received 4,638 complaints. That was more than double -- not nearly five times -- the 1,839 complaints in 2005.